{"id":25643,"date":"2014-05-06T00:59:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T04:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=25643"},"modified":"2014-05-06T02:24:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T06:24:03","slug":"jewels-of-the-month-boss-and-bossy-necklaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/jewels-of-the-month-boss-and-bossy-necklaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewels of the Month: Boss and Bossy Necklaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve loved singer Kelis ever since she appeared on the scene in 1999 with her debut single, &#8220;Caught Out There.&#8221;\u00a0 The song&#8217;s &#8220;Augggggh! I hate you so much right now!&#8221; line &#8212; aimed at a cheating man &#8212; and Kelis&#8217;s rainbow hair in the video always screamed &#8220;Badass!&#8221; to me.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N3JFwd1bk4Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Because of Kelis&#8217;s  badass credentials (which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pGL2rytTraA&#038;feature=kp\" target=\"_blank\">include the fact that her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard<\/a>), I paid attention when Kelis came out with her song &#8220;Bossy&#8221; in 2006. I&#8217;d always been offended by the word &#8220;bossy&#8221; but I liked Kelis&#8217;s willingness to claim it. She sang:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;You don&#8217;t have to love me<br \/>\nYou don&#8217;t even have to like me<br \/>\nBut you will respect me<br \/>\nYou know why?<br \/>\nCause I&#8217;m a boss!&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SSgp-IIgr4I\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I tried my best, but I didn&#8217;t feel ready to claim &#8220;bossy&#8221; yet for myself. Then, later in 2006, the word &#8220;boss&#8221; emerged in a big, male way thanks to supersized rapper and <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/rick-ross-and-my-dream-jewelry-job\/\" target=\"_blank\">jewelry connoisseur<\/a> Rick Ross, whose debut studio album, <em>Port of Miami<\/em>, included a track called &#8220;Boss.&#8221; Two years later, Ross recorded &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=78hT0H8nt_E\" target=\"_blank\">The Boss<\/a>,&#8221; featuring rapper T-Pain, for his second album, <em>Trilla<\/em>. Since then, Ross has embraced the image of &#8220;Boss&#8221; &#8212; or, per his pronunciation, &#8220;bawse&#8221; &#8212; in a way that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artistdirect.com\/entertainment-news\/article\/bruce-springsteen-talks-about-his-nickname\/9235000\" target=\"_blank\">Bruce Springsteen never has<\/a>. (&#8220;Don&#8221; is also an acceptable synonym. Ross&#8217;s fourth album was 2010&#8217;s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Teflon_Don_%28album%29\" target=\"_blank\">Teflon Don<\/a><\/em>.) Men&#8217;s magazine GQ ate it up. &#8220;I&#8217;m enjoying life. Being a boss,&#8221; Ross told writer Devin Friedman for an October 2011 GQ story called,&#8221;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gq.com\/entertainment\/music\/201109\/rick-ross-interview-gq-october-2011\" target=\"_blank\">Rick Ross&#8217;s Simple Lessons for Bosses, Dons, and Bitches<\/a>.&#8221; At the end of 2012, GQ named Ross its &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gq.com\/moty\/2012\/rick-ross-gq-bawse-of-the-year-2012\" target=\"_blank\">Bawse of the Year<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Music magazine Rolling Stone, with more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.srds.com\/mediakits\/rollingstone\/demographics.html\" target=\"_blank\">male than female readers<\/a>, loved it too. &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/news\/on-the-charts-rick-ross-is-the-boss-20120808\" target=\"_blank\">Rick Ross Is the Boss<\/a>,&#8221; said an Aug. 8, 2012, report on the #1 Billboard chart debut of Ross&#8217;s fifth album, <em>God Forgives, I Don&#8217;t<\/em>. The same month, the inside title of Ross&#8217;s cover story for the Aug. 30, 2012, issue of Rolling Stone declared, &#8220;Meet the New Boss.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/boss..jpg\" alt=\"boss.\" width=\"498\" height=\"337\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25703\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/boss..jpg 498w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/boss.-300x203.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 498px) 100vw, 498px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Josh Eells <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/news\/on-the-cover-rick-ross-gangster-of-love-20120815\" target=\"_blank\">described Ross as<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;&#8230; the William Howard Taft of the rap game, the guy T-Pain once called &#8220;Boss&#8221; 20 times in 11 seconds, the only man alive with a diamond-encrusted medallion of his own face &#8230;&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The one time I&#8217;m sure Ross has used the word &#8220;bossy&#8221; is in the 2009 song about a woman &#8212; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pmsoZv0OMC8\" target=\"_blank\">Bossy Lady<\/a>,&#8221; from his third studio album, <em>Deeper Than Rap<\/em>. It turns out the boss needs a bossy girl.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;To deal with a dude like me baby, you gotta be the HBIC<br \/>\nThe Head Bitch In Charge calling all the shots baby<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nEveryone knows you&#8217;re the boss&#8217;s girl.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All of this flashed through my mind in March, when <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sheryl_Sandberg\" target=\"_blank\">Sheryl Sandberg<\/a>, Facebook chief operating officer and author of <em>Leaning In<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/sheryl-sandberg-launches-ban-bossy-campaign-empower-girls\/story?id=22819181\" target=\"_blank\">joined with  former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Girl Scouts USA chief executive Anna Maria Ch\u00e1vez<\/a> to announce <a href=\"http:\/\/banbossy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ban Bossy<\/a>, a campaign aimed at empowering girls.  The Ban Bossy website says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;When a little boy asserts himself, he&#8217;s called a &#8216;leader.&#8217; Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded &#8216;bossy.'&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, it doesn&#8217;t stop in childhood. That shit continues right into adulthood. Women are bossy, while men are assertive &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/from-gloria-steinem-to-miley-cyrus-in-one-day\/\" target=\"_blank\">the same way I was a &#8220;bitch&#8221; at my wire-service job because I acted the same way the (non-bitchy) men did<\/a>. Some critics &#8212; including female critics &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/michelinemaynard\/2014\/03\/10\/dear-sheryl-sandberg-there-are-far-worse-things-than-being-called-bossy\/\" target=\"_blank\">thought Ban Bossy was unnecessary, because there are worse things to be called than bossy<\/a>. Yeah, that&#8217;s true, and I&#8217;ve been called those worse things. That didn&#8217;t make me hate &#8220;bossy&#8221; any less or ever perceive it as anything other than a criticism. <\/p>\n<p>However, now that the word has been exposed for what it is and people are talking about it, I feel okay with it at last. It&#8217;s always the down-low disrespect that gets to me. Once a light shines on a problem, it isn&#8217;t such a problem anymore. This was a point that reporter Ashley Parker made in an April 13 New York Times piece that mentioned &#8220;Ban Bossy.&#8221; Called, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/04\/13\/sunday-review\/reclaiming-the-words-that-smear.html\" target=\"_blank\">Reclaiming the Words That Smear<\/a>,&#8221; the article began:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;&#8216;Unbecoming.&#8217; &#8216;Miss Congeniality.&#8217; Not sufficiently &#8216;ladylike.&#8217; In politics, these words and phraseshave long been used to belittle female candidates. But now, female politicians are increasingly trying to rethink &#8212; and reclaim &#8212; how language shapes how they are perceived.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One of Parker&#8217;s examples, Senator Claire McCaskill (Dem., Missouri), focused on the word &#8220;ladylike,&#8221; after her opponent during her 2012 re-election campaign referred to her as &#8220;very aggressive&#8221; and not &#8220;ladylike.&#8221; She&#8217;s defining the word &#8220;ladylike&#8221; to describe someone who is ready to &#8220;speak out, be strong, take charge, change the world.&#8221; McCaskill is not the first to take back an insult, by any means. In 1970, Bella S. Abzug ran for Congress with the slogan, &#8220;This woman&#8217;s place is in the House &#8212; the House of Representatives!&#8221; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, told Parker, &#8220;The history of social movements is full of things that were a pejorative being reclaimed. It&#8217;s a powerful means of subverting the original use, and it invites reflection on the intention of the original use.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But I identify most with what Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said, based on her research for a &#8220;Name It, Change It&#8221; nonpartisan project to end sexist coverage of women candidates. Lake found that &#8220;while sexist coverage hurt female politicians, responding to it could benefit them. Sometimes, even the mere hint of sexism is enough to hurt the candidate perpetrating the language.&#8221; Yep, that&#8217;s what I like. Once the real meaning of a word is out in the open, anyone who uses it negatively can be called out. Now I feel caught up to Kelis.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Kelis was in the New York Times Magazine on the same day the Parker story ran, with an interview pegged to her new show on the Cooking Channel called <em>Saucy &#038; Sweet<\/em> and new album called <em>Food<\/em>. Interviewer Amy Chozick asked about &#8220;bossy,&#8221; the word. Kelis responded as I would expect from a woman who was way ahead of a lot of us on this subject:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Q: You had a hit song with &#8220;Bossy&#8221; in 2006. Recently Sheryl Sandberg started a campaign to ban the word. Do you think that word is bad for girls?<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>A: Bossy? Give me a break. Obviously, there are a lot more sensitive words that I can think of that I&#8217;ve been called. Bossy, to me, is not one of them. But to each his own.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chozick then asked Kelis about her ex-husband, the much-admired Nas, who is consistently on critics&#8217; and fans&#8217; lists of the top five rappers of all time. Chozick asked about <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/best-use-of-a-previously-worn-wedding-dress\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nas&#8217;s pose with Kelis&#8217;s wedding dress on the album cover of his 2012 <em>Life Is Good<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nas.jpg\" alt=\"nas\" width=\"498\" height=\"415\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25681\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nas.jpg 498w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nas-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 498px) 100vw, 498px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Chozick persists, &#8220;But it brought up a bunch of stuff you were probably hoping was in the past. Kelis replied, &#8220;Maybe for others, but not for me.&#8221; And then there&#8217;s the kicker, which I have to highlight because it made me laugh out loud:<\/p>\n<p><CENTER>&#8220;I DON&#8217;T REALLY LISTEN TO HIS MUSIC ANYWAY.&#8221;<\/center><\/p>\n<p>Bwah ha ha ha! To me, that dis makes Kelis a bigger boss than Rick Ross, as well as the queen of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/store\/products.php?product=Letter-Necklace-%252d-Small%2C-Silver%2C-IDGAF\" target=\"_blank\">IDGAF<\/a>. In honor of Kelis, Sheryl Sandberg and all women who are ready to take back an undermining sexist word, I offer two new sterling-silver necklaces from my WENDYB by Wendy Brandes diffusion line as May&#8217;s Jewels of the Month. <\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re feeling large and in charge, you can get BOSS.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25683\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/store\/products.php?product=Letter-Necklace-%252d-Small%2C-Silver%2C-Boss\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25683\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSS_neck_Z__53798_std.jpg\" alt=\"$275. Click to purchase.\" width=\"360\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSS_neck_Z__53798_std.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSS_neck_Z__53798_std-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSS_neck_Z__53798_std-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25683\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">$275. Click to purchase.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If you&#8217;re way past being a boss and fully into owning &#8220;bossy&#8221; the word, you can have BOSSY the necklace to match.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25684\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/store\/products.php?product=Letter-Necklace-%252d-Small%2C-Silver%2C-Bossy\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25684\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSSY_neck_Z__72894_std.jpg\" alt=\"$300. Click to purchase.\" width=\"360\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25684\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSSY_neck_Z__72894_std.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSSY_neck_Z__72894_std-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOSSY_neck_Z__72894_std-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25684\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">$300. Click to purchase.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If you&#8217;re at Kelis levels of boss-dom, holla at me at wbjewelry to order a custom BAWSE necklace. <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve loved singer Kelis ever since she appeared on the scene in 1999 with her debut single, &#8220;Caught Out There.&#8221;\u00a0 The song&#8217;s &#8220;Augggggh! I hate you so much right now!&#8221; line &#8212; aimed at a cheating man &#8212; and Kelis&#8217;s rainbow hair in the video always screamed &#8220;Badass!&#8221; to me. Because of Kelis&#8217;s badass credentials&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/jewels-of-the-month-boss-and-bossy-necklaces\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,295,13,591],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-feminism","8":"category-jewel-of-the-month","9":"category-necklaces","10":"category-wendyb-by-wendy-brandes","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25643"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25702,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25643\/revisions\/25702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}